New: A draft decree concerning the grievances set out in the redundancy notice has been sent to the social partners. This draft decree changes the procedure to be implemented after the redundancy notice. The rule applied by redundancy notice to set the limits of the dispute has now been modified.
In view of the special meeting of the National Committee for Collective Bargaining on 23 November 2017, the social partners were presented with a draft decree concerning the possibility for the employer of communicating grievances set out in the redundancy notice a posteriori, pursuant to the Macron decree, no. 2017-1387 dated 22 September 2017.
1. From now on, the employee will have a period of 15 days as of the redundancy notice in which to request, by registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt, that the employee provides further details of the reasons stated in the notice.
The employer, for their part, will have a period of 15 days to provide the employee with their response to this, either by registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt or by letter delivered in person in exchange for a receipt.
It should be noted that the employer may also, on their own initiative, provide supplementary justifications for the redundancy action within a period of 15 days.
Consequently, inadequate justification of the redundancy is no longer sufficient for it to be unjust or unmotivated. From now on, if the employee has not asked the employer to provide details of the reasons given in the redundancy notice, and if the judge subsequently deems the statement of reasons inadequate, this in itself will no longer render the redundancy unjust or unmotivated. On the other hand, this irregularity will entitle the employee to an indemnity not exceeding one month’s salary.
2. These provisions will become applicable to redundancies enacted after the publication of the decree, which is expected to take place after the meeting of 23 November 2017 and no later than 1 January 2018.
Draft decree pursuant to order no. 2017-1387 of 22 September 2017 concerning redundancy notices.
Our comments: At this stage, a number of questions remain unanswered: is the 15-day period calculated in working days, days worked or calendar days? Does asking for explanations make it possible to move the starting date for contesting the redundancy? If the employer does not respond to the employee’s request, will the inadequate statement of reasons continue to render the redundancy unjust or unmotivated, as was initially the case?
